When Ada Laverne Blackmer was born in 1884, in Creston, Ogle, Illinois, United States, her father, Wilfred Elmer Blackmer, was 25 and her mother, Anne Young Shane, was 21. She married James Albert Waterman on 21 February 1903, in Ogle, Illinois, United States. She lived in Dement Township, Ogle, Illinois, United States in 1900. She died in February 1955, in Fergus Falls, Otter Tail, Minnesota, United States, at the age of 71.